The SMISL Championship meet saw Senior Kaitlyn Fellhauer voted as Swimmer of the Year and Coach Heikka was selected Coach of the Year. MHS Swim coach, Daniel Heikka, said in an email, “This is a very special group of young ladies (a bit crazy and wacky but special none the less). They worked so incredibly hard and made going to “work” everyday incredibly easy… The emotion that flowed from the girls throughout the meet was incredible.” Heikka was speaking of the Swim and Dive teams from this year after the SMISL Swim and Dive meet in November. The diving competition was on 11/7 and Mackenzie Crawford took the win, with Ashley Laplant in 3rd and Liz Rossow following with 6th place. On 11/11 the swim teams took to the pools and Milan placed in the Medley relay (Naomi Rossow, Danielle Trolian, Mikala Muccino, Alayna Humes), and took 5th with the B relay (Hannah Sivils, Kaitlyn Fellhauer, Alexis Fetterold, and Hannah Dennes) finishing in the 10th spot. The 50 relay was a record race for Milan with best times from Rachel Goodin 9th, Hanah Sivils 14th, and Kaylee Petersen. In the 100 Butterfly Muccino was 3rd and Fellhauer 7th. The 100 Freestyle saw Hannah Dennes, and Kaylee Petersen both put up best times while Fetterolf took 10th. Rachel Goodin held (8th) with Alayna Humes narrowing ahead in (7th) place. Sivils narrowly missed a personal best. Heikka said, “The 500 was another exciting race, as Naomi Rossow had the entire team backing her and it showed, she dropped over 9 seconds off her time and narrowly missed the State Cut….” The 200 Free relays (Muccino, Goodin, Humes and Rossow) took 4th and (Sivils, Dennes, Petersen and Fellhauer)10th. Alexis Fetterolf finished her senior year with a 5th place in the 100 Backstroke. The 100 Breaststroke saw Fellhauer finish her career with a 13th place, while Danielle Trolian took 5th in her best time of the season. The meet finished with the 400 Free relay (Goodin, Humes, Rossow and Muccino ) taking 6th. The Milan Swim Team followed the SMISL meet with the State meet a week later and took 5th place overall in the State Finals at Eastern Michigan University. Mackenzie Crawford took the State Championship title for the second year in a row with a score of 463.75 and earned the title of MHSAA Diver of the Year. Her coach Chelsea Laginess is the MHSAA Dive Coach of the year. Madelyn Cislo set a new Milan school record in the butterfly with a time of 55.90 and took home the State Championship in the Individual Medley. According to the Milan Athletics Director, David Kaiser, who was reporting to Facebook as events took place, Lizzy McKenna finished 4th in the 200 Freestyle and 2nd in the 500 Free. The Milan teams took 6th in the 400 Relay and 6th in the 200 Free Relay and finished in 5th place in the overall team points with a score of 175. Madelyn Cislo shared with us that the girls “had a lot of fun and it was really cool to see everyone come together to swim fast and get 5th place overall out of 35 teams.” Balinda Zimmerman is owner/operator at Milan Memories by Minna, and a freelance writer for the Milan Eagle News. She can be reached at balindaz [at] comcast [dot] net.